Election 2012: CU Trade Associations Tout Winning Records

Credit union trade associations and their campaign donations fared well Tuesday, with both CUNA and NAFCU reporting the vast majority of candidates they supported were winners.

Katie Marisic, NAFCU director of political affairs, said as of Wednesday morning with some races still pending, the trade was victorious in 94% of its races. And, the money went to the right places: 97% of the money NAFCU spent on congressional races was donated to victors, she said.

“The numbers will change a bit, but as of this morning, we’ve supported over 100 winning campaigns in 2012,” she said.

CUNA had similar results, according to Vice President of Political Affairs Trey Hawkins. In the Senate, CUNA supported 27 races, winning 26. In the House, CULAC was involved in 361 races and won 336, with 12 races still too close to call. That means only 15 losses out of 376 races, for a 96% winning record.

Additionally, CUNA was victorious in 60% of the races in which it supported a challenger, rather than an incumbent. Hawkins called support of challengers “very high risk with very high reward.”

Winning CUNA challengers in the House include two New Yorkers, former Erie County executive Chris Collins, a Republican, and a Democrat, former U.S. Rep. Dan Maffei. Democrat Cheri Bustos was also a winning challenger in Iowa.

Hawkins called Bustos a “strong friend locally to credit unions” and said her opponent, one-term congressman Bobby Schilling, was not very supportive of credit unions. “We are very pleased Bustos will be coming to Congress,” Hawkins said.

Redistricting resulted in 59 races in which there were no incumbents; CUNA was active in 50 of those races and won 44.

“We try to take advantage of opportunities in which there is no incumbent,” Hawkins said, “and identify which candidates are friends of credit unions, and help them.”